The Denver Post today ran three letters regarding health care topics, each making points that Democrats need to hear.
It’s pretty clear that not only the Republicans abhor the idea of health care reform, but so do Democrats. The fact that Joe Lieberman, senator from Connecticut, is holding up the current health care bill and the Democrats do nothing to stop him indicates that he speaks for all of them. Lieberman is just doing his job, obstructing health care reform so that both parties in Congress do not have to lose their corporate benefactors.
Good Democrats should leave the Democratic Party and send a message that votes have to be earned. Democrats have been betrayed too many times in the last few months.
L. Highland, Morrison
It’s a painfully obvious point to make – and yet so many Democrats that I read don’t see it. That makes it even more painful.
A single senator has managed to kill both the expansion of Medicare and any possibility of a public option in the health care bill. So what is left? A mandate for almost everyone to purchase insurance and a federal subsidy to help those who cannot afford it.
In essence, what will be created by this bill is a very effective mechanism for transferring money from the federal treasury to the insurance industry. In other words, corporate America wins again.
I suppose that it is pure coincidence that Joe Lieberman represents Connecticut and Connecticut is the home of so many insurance companies.
Niel Powers, Colorado Springs
This writer does not see that he is being played by the “Bad Joe” tactic, but does see the larger goal of the Democrats’ efforts – to create a pipeline of subsidy to the health insurance industry.
I don’t know how the senators who voted down a proposal to allow Americans to import low-cost prescription drugs can justify their actions. The amendment by North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan would have helped millions of Americans who are paying premium prices because our nation’s drug companies have a captive market. Where are the open competition and free enterprise that we like to hold up as American values? Do these values and the needs of our people simply get pushed aside when they come into conflict with the personal and financial interests of these senators?
When we see officials from other countries involved in these types of actions, we call it corruption. I don’t see the difference here.
Fred Buschhoff, Denver
There ya go. It really is that simple. We are corrupt, decadent, and on our way to collapse. And that’s not a bad thing. We need to collapse. We’re not worth keeping around the way we are.
Others abroad surely agree. Let’s take a poll, starting in Iraq …
Piece of Mindful 